Let’s teach doubt and skepticism about science
Lawrence Krauss wants schools to cultivate doubt: Doubt about one’s most cherished beliefs is, of course, central to science: the physicist Richard Feynman stre...
Category: Values
‘Scientific thinking’ as a barrier to diversity in science
A couple months ago my friend Kenny Gibbs wrote a great post about diversity and science for Scientific American. I want to reflect on this sentence (emphasis...
Useful is better than true
To reflect a bit more on astrology…I wonder why exactly my mother should embrace modern cosmology and reject Hindu astrology. Would it make even the sligh...
Astrology does work for some people
As I return from a long blogging break, I thought I’d briefly turn away from creationism and instead discuss astrology. I was inspired by Phil Plait’...
Your science is not important
In a talk titled ‘Your Religion is not Important’, the Dalai Lama once said: I am not interested, my friend, about your religion or if you are rel...
Pluralism, Christians, and moral discourse
In a thoughtful essay on religious freedom, pluralism and LGBT rights, John Inazu asks a lot of non-Christians: Pluralism does not entail relativism. Living wel...
Why creationists need to come out of the closet
Andrew Sullivan has been running a few posts on ‘Why Atheists Need to Come Out.’ Here’s my whimsical reformulation of a recent item in the thr...
Spreading the gospel of evolution
Adam Laats writes a fascinating sentence in his review of Adam Shapiro’s book on the Scopes Trial: Textbook authors, Shapiro writes, tended to work collab...
Junkies don’t come clean after learning evolution
Last summer as my wife and I left Pike’s Peak, we met two men hitching a ride down the mountain after hiking up it. On the drive we learned that one of th...
Creationists and unity, cont.
In addition to Victor’s thoughtful comment, I recommend Derek Rishmawy on writing off fundamentalists (emphasis added): And yet, I can’t help but note thi...